The Best Bond Pre-Title Sequences

007's Opening Sequences, From Worst To Best

Sam Mendes has promised that Spectrewill have the most elaborate Bond opening sequence in history, although he was hardly likely to say, "We’ve just bodged together some old nonsense because we’re tired and you’re going to see it anyway". In order to best the rest of the series Spectre is going to have to compete with some pre-title numbers both majestic and bizarre. We went back and watched, then ranked, the lot – an idea we almost instantly regretted.

Dr. No

Nothing. Goes straight into the credits, and even they’re not the grand, sexy production of the later films. There’s just a load of dots, all blipping about, and then some silhouettes of women who look like they’re at the tail end of an office party. Rubbish. To be fair, nobody knew it was going to be the longest running film franchise at this point.

Diamonds Are Forever

God, this is badly made. Sean Connery’s brief return to the 007 series is one of the worst films in the entire series and the opening is disjointed, clunky and makes Connery look old and creaky instead of suave. He kills a woman with her own bikini top – a low point in Bond misogyny – and then has a rubbish fight, involving a mouse trap and some scalpels, before killing ‘Blofeld’ in a bubbling pool that looks straight out of a shonky tiki restaurant.

Live and Let Die

There’s lots of death and oddness in this one, though it’s not very dynamically directed. A British diplomat is killed in the UN. Another is killed on the streets of New Orleans. Then we cut bizarrely to a voodoo ritual and a portly man being bitten by a snake wielded by the oddball Baron Samedi. Like the entire film, it’s a bit confusing, tonally all over the shop and more than a smidge racist.

For Your Eyes Only

One of the few times that Bond shows any kind of continuation. We see 007 visiting the grave of his wife, Tracy, who he married in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, back when he looked like George Lazenby for a spell. Summoned by the bosses, he heads off in a helicopter, which is hijacked remotely by a familiar-looking man stroking a familiar-looking cat. Trying to escape from an out of control chopper (which for some reason makes plane noises), Bond battles the forces of gravity and the limitations of 1980s special effects. By the time it gets to a man-versus-wheelchair chase it’s all become so absurd it’s worthy of Austin Powers. And then Blofeld tries to save his own life by offering to buy 007 a stainless steel delicatessen. What?

Octopussy

Not to be confused with the much better post-credits clown sequence. It’s not really clear what’s going on, but Bond is watching some horses and wearing a disguise he probably got from the bargain bin at Crazy Ernie’s Budget Fancy Dress Shop. There’s some business with a bomb and a plane but the only thing worth remembering is that Bond at one point deploys a rocket housed in a fake horse’s arse. Sadly, this sequence isn’t available online.

A View To A Kill

It’s rather a bold choice to head back onto snow after the iconic beginning to The Spy Who Loved Me (coming up later) with its Union Jack parachute finale. This doesn’t have anything to compare with that, but it does have some very high production values and a frankly absurd iceberg-cum-submarine. It’s a Moore film, obviously.

Quantum of Solace

It's clear, sadly, from the get go that this was not going to be one of the better Bonds. As Bond races along the Italian coast, zipping through traffic jams and evading faceless bad guys, it all looks very frantic but is virtually impossible to follow. The least you expect from a Bond movie is a competent car chase.

You Only Live Twice

A whopper. We start with a US spacecraft being stolen, from space. Yes, really. Then the world’s collected powers decide there’s only one man qualified to find a pilfered rocket, and he happens to be shagging someone in Japan. Following a shoot-out Bond is apparently killed. It’s sort of a good idea but why pretend Bond could be dead when we’re less than five minutes in? What’s the rest of the movie going to be, M filling out the paperwork?

Licence To Kill

One of the rare sequences that shows Bond having a life outside spywork and casual sex. He’s on his way to Felix Leiter’s wedding, as best man no less. Obviously they are intercepted and there’s a lot of well-staged shooting argy-bargy. The boys make it to the wedding just in time, by parachute! Timothy Dalton received so much criticism for his dour Bond, but this is a pretty solid entry.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Very knowing. Given this was the first Bond without Connery it plays (not at all subtly) on the confusion. Various members of the British government wonder where Bond might be. He turns out to be saving the lovely Diana Rigg on a beach for some reason and now looks very much like George Lazenby. A fight follows, Rigg nicks his car and Lazenby mutters, “This never happened to the other fellow.” SO corny, but also kind of fun.

Die Another Day

Absolutely the worst Bond ever, though not a bad sequence. Bond and a couple of cohorts do some sneaky night-time surfing – because it’s the only mode of transport he’s never used, save sneaking up on his enemies by dodgem or cow – and steals a suitcase of diamonds. Then he’s captured and tortured, showing a vulnerability to Bond we haven’t previously really seen. It’s trying something new, if not entirely successfully. And we think we’re right in saying it’s the only pre-title sequence that carries on through the titles, unfortunately to that old racket Madonna rattled together.

The Living Daylights

Poor old Dalton. He had too much to do in his first Bond foray, clawing the series back from the winking nonsense it became in Roger Moore’s final days and bedding in a new super-serious tone. His intro is a cracker. Various 00 agents parachute into Gibraltar on a training mission, but someone is taking the game a little too seriously and starts bumping them off. But Bond’s got them rumbled. It works, it was just too big an adjustment for Bond fans. The only real moment of levity comes when Bond is attacked by a monkey.

Casino Royale

Functional, important, but maybe not actually terribly exciting. The first Bond in the Daniel Craig era had to make clear that we were no longer operating under the same silly rules as the Brosnan movies. Bond is serious now. So in grainy black-and-white, with lots of tight, unfussy shots, we get the backstory of a Bond gaining his 00 status. It’s quick and dirty and in a little over three minutes it erases any thought that Bond might be past his prime.

From Russia With Love

This ushered in the trend of a proper pre-title sequence and it’s a doozy. After sneaking around the grounds of a stately home, Bond is murdered! Or IS he? Of course he isn’t. It’s playful and teasing, setting the tone for the rest of the run.

Goldfinger

This one’s got a bit of everything: action, sex, silliness. The silliness is too silly because the first we see of Bond, he’s swimming about with a seagull stuck to his head. How is having a bird on your head less conspicuous than not having a bird stuck to your head? Fortunately, it gets better. Bond strips off the wetsuit to reveal a perfectly pressed dinner suit underneath; he seduces a woman, but then uses her as a shield, which is a bit rum but hardly out of character; he has a fight with some goons and kills one of them with a heater in a bathtub.

Tomorrow Never Dies

M and her lackies watch from the safety of their London base as 007 infiltrates a terrorist arms sale, which has gathered together so many bad guys that a missile is launched to kill them all, despite the fact they’re surrounded by enough nuclear weapons to end the world. Of course it’s up to Bond to stop the missile and save us all. It’s the epitome of the Brosnan ‘more-is-more’ era but it works. It’s got great action, the classic race against time as the missile gets ever closer and some corking ‘oh crumbs’ reactions from Judi Dench as M.

The Man With The Golden Gun

A terrific intro to one of the great Bond villains and one of the great henchmen. We meet Scaramanga, and his triumvirate of nipples, on an exotic beach, and then we meet his creepy little sidekick, Nick Nack. Then we visit Scaramanga’s trippy maze where he hunts assassins and keeps a waxwork of James Bond. This guy, it’s clear, is a psychedelic lunatic and whatever the writers were on they should be sharing it.

Thunderball

Bond is lurking at the funeral of a baddie agent, which has been attended by nobody but the man’s widow, whom 007 tails. Following the woman back to her palatial home, Bond socks the poor lady in the face. Because it is not the widow but the supposedly dead agent posing as his own wife and showing himself to be impressively adept at walking in heels. A punch-up that’s as well choreographed as it is amusingly slapstick ensues, until Bond makes his getaway using one of the great gadgets of all the Bond movies: the personal jetpack.

GoldenEye

The Pierce Brosnan era delivered everything people thought they wanted from a Bond film. They were almost never surprising or subversive, but they delivered functional excitement. Brosnan’s introduction sets the tone. It opens with him bungee jumping off a dam, his magnificent hair never shifting a millimetre, then a shootout alongside comrade Sean Bean who is ‘killed’. With no time for grief, Bond dashes off to catch a plane. As the plane tumbles off the end of a runway Bond strives to outdo his bungee jump by making an even more perilous leap, without a rubber band to hold him. Naturally, he catches up with the plane just in time. We have a new Bond and he does not believe anything is too over-the-top.

Moonraker

Another one with a stolen rocket, except this time it’s nicked from the back of a plane rather than directly from space, as in You Only Live Twice. Bond’s needed but off enjoying some above-the-clothes action on a plane in Africa. His conquest turns out to be a wrong’un and Bond winds up tumbling out of the plane without a parachute. Cue lots of exciting mid-air stunts done by someone who is patently not Roger Moore. And then he gets attacked by Jaws! Who tries to save himself from a squishy end by flapping when his parachute is cut. One of the highlights of the Moore years.

The World Is Not Enough

Marvellous. The pinnacle of the era of 90s excess. It kicks off in Bilbao, where a meeting gives way to fisticuffs and a very cool escape out of a window with a bit of string and some poor hapless goon used as an anchor. Then we’re off to London where Bond is nearly killed by some money soaked in wee – you’ll have to watch it, we haven’t the time to explain – and then dashes off on a boat chase down the Thames, a flight in a hot air balloon and a bit with the Millennium Dome, which you young’uns will know as the O2. By far the best part of the entire movie.

The Spy Who Loved Me

The one everyone remembers, even if they don’t know which film it’s from. It’s the one with all the skiing and the Union Jack parachute at the end. It is an unalloyed joy, easily one of Bond's best stunts, and that final unbroken shot of Bond leaping off the mountain is no less impressive than it was nearly forty years ago. The only thing that keeps it from the top spot is that Bond’s yellow onesie is such a hideously dorky costume that it almost saps all the cool out of the sequence. Almost.

Skyfall

Once you're done reeling from the majesty of Roger Deakins’s gorgeous photography we settle in for the best Bond intro of them all. It goes on and on and on, getting bigger and bigger. An attempt to rescue an agent goes horribly wrong and Bond goes tearing after the man who killed him, which leads to a rooftop bike chase, a train-top punch-up and a bit with a digger, plus Naomie Harris as the rare woman who gets to join in with the action without being the victim. Then Bond gets shot! Just this sequence alone contains a lot more plot and action that some of the Moore movies.